Albino
by ManaketeSmoocher
Summary: Natural selection is a cruel mistress. She cares not for the runt of the litter.


It is dark. I cannot breathe. Opening my mouth to scream does nothing, and I thrash about in the thick, viscous liquid I am submerged in. My wing collides with something hard; something containing me. Desperate to breathe, I thrash more. My face bumps into the container, and I realize there is something hard there; something to free me. I ram my head against the wall, letting the hard tooth damage it. It works, and I continue until I manage to free myself.

It is bright. I can breath. Opening my mouth lets a rush of air enter my tiny body, and I am born. After I squirm my way out of my container, I realize it was an egg. I disregard it, blinking in an attempt to remove the thick liquid from my eyes. Everything is a blur of green, blue, and black. Something burns bright overhead, hurting my eyes when I look at it. I look down. There is a large black mass before me, and somehow it gives me a sense of safety. I stumble on all fours towards it, falling down several times before I finally reach it. The grass is both soft and sharp against my skin.

The black mass leans down towards me, sniffing me and nudging me with her nose. This must be my mother, I decide, though I cannot see solid outlines of anything. I am picked up by the nape of my neck and moved to smooth stone, where smaller versions of Mother are already sunbathing. I join them in sunbathing, but it is only too soon that my skin seems to burn, and I cry in pain, rolling off of the stone. My siblings lift their heads, and I feel them looking at me, but I can barely discern their green eyes from their scales.

Mother has disappeared, and a larger black mass I assume to be my father is dozing off nearby. He does not notice my pain, and I stumble towards the shade I can barely make out. Most of my siblings return to sunbathing, but one trots over to me, lifting his wing to shelter me from the sun. I sense he is the eldest, and he sits just outside of the shade, wanting to feel the heat of the sun but not wanting to leave me alone. The cool shade is soothing on my skin, and it is only now that I look at my limbs and realize they are white; a stark contrast to the dark scales of my siblings and parents. After determining I am safe, my brother settles down and returns to his nap, ignoring (or perhaps unaffected by) the grass poking at his skin.

I close my eyes, resting on a tree root that slightly elevates me from the ground. When mother returns, I am still asleep, and my brother nudges me awake. Mother has brought with her the scent of food. The sun has begun to set, and the heat on my skin is no longer unbearable. I eat with my family, unaware of the strange looks most of my siblings send me. The fish fills my stomach, and I feel awake, but thirsty. My siblings meld together in a large black blur as they follow Mother and Father. The only one to wait for me is my eldest brother, and I have already decided to stay by his side as long as I am able.

We hurry off to a nearby spring, and indulge ourselves in the cool water. I see my reflection, and am disturbed by the stark contrast of red eyes against my white scales. Many of my siblings jump into the spring after drinking, and I follow suit, splashing about eagerly to disturb my reflection. Only Brother stays with me, though I cannot imagine why he would do so. He is the strongest of us, and has no reason to spend time with me. Even I know I have been branded the runt of the litter. Mother burns the sunbathing rock with her plasma breath, and all of us huddle under her wing. Father is keeping watch.

Early life would continue to progress that way, and within weeks our clutch of hatchlings would grow to over twice our original size. Brother is the largest, with the strongest muscle. He has grown overprotective of me, and refuses to let my other siblings near me in fear that they will attack me for being weak as I am. My skin is not as sensitive as it once was, but I still cannot stay in the sun for longer than a few hours. Though my eyesight has improved, I still see nothing with crisp clarity. Brother warns me of danger, though he often takes care of it before I can react. His plasma blasts are already leagues stronger than mine, and I feel weak and dependant on him.

When we learn to fly, he is predictably the fastest, though my diminutive size puts me at a close second. It is my only strength, and even then I am still only second-best. Now that we have learned to fly, we must hunt our own food. I can hardly see the fish in the water, but my white scales shine bright against the night sky and cause them to scatter regardless. I am unfortunately forced to rely on Brother to provide food for the both of us. I dread the day he finds a mate and leaves me behind.

Mother and Father tell us it is time to migrate elsewhere; we follow obediently and without question. Brother flies ahead of me as we fly out in the cover of the night. A nearby island comes into view, but Mother and Father do not stop. I do not know how far they intend to fly, and I am already growing weary. Brother fails to notice, as I am in the back. I find it difficult to see in the dark of night, and the only reason I can see the shapes of my family is because I recognize their scent.

Light flashes from my left, and before I can react I feel my skin blasted by rings of fire. I cry out in pain, but try to keep flying, fearful of what is behind me. Spines whiz through the air, embedding themselves in my wing membrane, and I cannot continue. I flap my white wings uselessly as I plummet, shrieking for my family. Brother cries out towards me, but I am seized by six rows of deadly teeth. I wish to live, but my thrashing is useless, and all I can wonder is if I ever looked like the moon to smaller creatures down below.

* * *

It is dark. I cannot breathe. Opening my mouth only releases screams from within me. My family does nothing to save my youngest sibling, and I see they are intent on escaping before the assaulter pursues them. In that moment, I dive at the other dragon, shaped so differently than us with his six rows of teeth and bulging white eyes. My sibling lays limp in his jaw, and I am filled with rage. The attacker senses my approach and tosses my sibling away, smacking the body towards the island carelessly. I try to dive, but am forced to dodge rings of fire as he keeps me away from his prey.

A sickening crunch reaches my ears, and I know my red-eyed sibling is dead. An enraged screech tears itself from my throat, and I send blast after blast of plasma at the other dragon until I run out and must recharge. He attempts to return to his island, but I extend my teeth and seize him by his long, winding body and throw him in the opposite direction. My bite broke his skin, and the smell of blood in my nostrils is vengefully satisfying.

The murderer is my enemy, and I give chase as he flies away from the island. My family is long gone, and the only urge in my body is to tear the beast apart with my teeth and claws. We fly long and far, blasting fire at each other, but he manages to stay just out of range of my claws and I am unable to seize him and put him in his place. My blood boils with anger, but after chasing him for ages, the sun begins to rise. The target I have set my eyes on dives for nearest island, using his six rows of rotating teeth to carve a tunnel into the hard rock and hide from the light.

I land on a sea stack and stare at the hole my nemesis has dug, but the adrenaline wears off now that I have landed. The sun is warm on my scales, and it soothes me. I am reminded I have been flying all night, and my wings ache, longing to rest. My family is long gone. I can no longer smell them. Burning the rock beneath me, I take a fitful nap, unsure of where I am. All too soon, the sun sets again, but when I inspect the hole my nemesis has dug, I find nothing. He must have left when I was asleep. I shriek down the hole in frustration and blast it several times with plasma, causing it to cave in.

Soon I am in flight once more, though I no longer know where to go. I am angry with myself for losing my nemesis. I am angry with myself for being unable to stop him from killing my sibling. I am angry with myself for not noticing his approach in the first place. I am angry with myself for choosing to fly in front of my sibling instead of behind. I am angry with myself for chasing after my nemesis instead of following my family. I am angry with myself for a great many things, but above all I am miserable.

I miss my family. Landing on a ledge jutting out of a mountainside, I allow myself to curl up and be miserable. Various types of dragons fly by, sending me pitying looks. They must believe I am young and lost. That believe would be true. A low rumbling shakes me, and I am inexplicably drawn to the top of the mountain, which I quickly realize is a volcano. I fly down inside, and the intense heat is both comforting and overpowering. When I land on an empty stretch of rock, I am quaking.

The volcano is filled with numerous different dragons, and there is an air of unease. A bubbling sound comes from the lava, and I am soon face-to-face with a dragon that must be one hundred times larger than myself. Three eyes that nearly match me for size squint at me, and I bow my head immediately, hoping to show that I have no ill intentions. I am terrified, and the other dragons in the cavernous space cower away from her, trying to shrink into the walls. She snorts a foul puff of air onto me and sinks down further into the lava.

A deafening screech shakes the entire volcano, and I find my own thoughts unable to form. My pupils narrow to slits, and all I can think to do is fly out and attack an island with odd structures. The Queen requires food, and it is now my job to help retrieve it. Myself and the other followers rise up. Tonight, the humans will feel the night's fury.

* * *

 ** _Word Count: 1,927_**

 **According to Wikipedia, two things happened on May 31st, 1927. The last Ford Model T was made. American novelist and pianist, Francis Grierson also died on that day, while playing piano for his friends.** **That's completely unrelated to this fanfic, though. I just thought it was interesting. (oh also tomorrow is my birthday *cough*)**

 **In light of the new poster for HTTYD 3, I was thinking about white night furies. I absolutely hate them. They're awful. They go against the natural selection that made the night fury such a deadly attacker on Berk. There's no reason for the female night fury to be white, especially when they clearly went through the effort of making her features distinct enough from Toothless to be recognizably different. They could've kept her design the same and had the colour be a different hue of black than Toothless's blue tint (I made an edit where she's black and has like a purple tint, though the purple tint wasn't on purpose I just couldn't get it to be a different hue without making it look bad for some reason), and she would've still looked very different from him. Like, she isn't even albino? Why the heck is she white?**

 **So, looking at the likely survivability of a white fury, I thought "what if I wrote a fanfic about an albino night fury?" and this fic was born. I was planning on having the albino die from the get-go, but I didn't decide it would be Toothless's youngest sibling until I had already started writing it. Making it Toothless's sibling made me think of Toothless's Nemesis (from the show), so that wound up being the cause of death and as far as I'm concerned, this is where the animosity between that whispering death and Toothless originated. They never elaborated on why the two hated each other, so I took the liberty to come up with my own idea. This fic helps me understand how Toothless got to where he is, as well as explaining the relationship between Toothless and his nemesis.**

 **I wrote this in a couple hours, and haven't proofread it, so please alert me of any mistakes. If you've read any of my other work (which I would appreciate if you'd check out, I've written more HTTYD and some Harry Potter and Fire Emblem), you'll know I always write in 3rd person limited, past tense. This is a very different style of writing, and I purposefully avoided using conjunctions because I thought that made the narration sound less human. I also avoided using names and dialogue, as I didn't think dragons would have names or be able to communicate to each other when taking into account the more natural and realistic approach I went for in this fic. That's all I really have to say, so...**

 _ **I absolutely love reviews so please review if you'd like! I hope you enjoyed reading this little one-shot!**_


End file.
